


Swathes of Blue

by Shelligator



Category: Green Eggs and Ham (Cartoon), Green Eggs and Ham - Netflix
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sad, Tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21551983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shelligator/pseuds/Shelligator
Summary: When you welcome someone into your heart, only to have them leave, that space doesn't just leave with them. The hole they leave behind is an abyss, and it festers like an open wound. It consumes your entire being. And Guy is drowning in it. He's broken his best friend's heart. Hurt him in ways he can only imagine. And the pain of his absence, his self-loathing, is too much for one Guy to bear.He never wants to be alone again.I suck at summaries. This is a oneshot, have some hurt/comfort <3
Relationships: Guy Am I/Sam I Am (Green Eggs and Ham)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 238





	Swathes of Blue

Guy feels heavy.

His feet have been carrying him through Meepville aimlessly for what feels like an eternity, and now he barely notices as he follows the interviewers through the gloomy corridors of the Paint Watchers offices, the sounds of the busy city muffled in the distance. He can’t bring himself to put up a facade of enthusiasm for them, caring little for the looks they throw him as he shuffles along robotically, gaze on the floor.

He wishes he could say he didn’t care about anything at all.

The room they lead him into is huge, the high vaulted ceiling soaring above him. The knox falters in his step, feeling small and insignificant in the vastness of the space. The air is cold and heavy with the chemical smell of industrial paint. It fills his nostrils, assaulting his senses, and he slowly but steadily feels the warning throbs of an approaching headache rack his brain.

Is the room spinning a little? As his gaze lifts to roam over the vast expanse of toxic blue before him, he swears it wavers.

A lump rising in his throat, it burns and strangles him. For a moment, a split second, he’s overcome.

It’s too much. It’s just too much.

_You lied to me..._

“Guy Am I, was it? Take a seat, the paint is _literally_ drying as you stand there.” One of the interviewers snaps impatiently, and the former dreamer blinks rapidly, swallowing the lump in his throat audibly.

_Not now, not here, please..._

But as he slips into the seat and draws the magnifying glass closer to him, he feels the fragile grip he has on his composure slipping. He sucks in a long, shaky breath through his nose, trying to hold back the tide of emotions that threatens to sweep him away into the darkest depths of his mind.

“Don’t look away from the paint till it’s dry, you hear me?”

He has things to do, dreams to give up, hopes to dash. He has no time for hysteria. But it’s still there, still looming, and his fingers dig into his thighs harshly, like the pain can distract him from it. 

Distract him from his grief.

“Oh er, yes, yes sir.”

The other man watches him for a moment, scrutinizing, and Guy resists the urge to squirm. It’s a small relief when he departs, leaving the former inventor to watch paint in peace. He couldn’t imagine he wants to sit and stare at him staring, anyway.

Well, there is one person who _did._

A fluffy white face split with a sunny smile suddenly bobs before his mind's eye, his red hat threatening to fall off his head, and with it comes a sharp pang deep in his chest. That face twists, morphs into a look of horror, and the pain worsens, blossoming in his heart.

_Sam…_

His vision blurs, and he grits his teeth as his eyes flood with hot, bitter tears. No, no, not now. He couldn’t do this now. Please. He begs to be embraced by the emptiness again, to be smothered by nothingness, to feel the cold seep into every fiber of his being and make the pain disappear.

But it does no such thing. Unbidden, the tears start to flow with abandon. He can’t see through them, the wall of paint becoming a solid blur as his tears dampen to his cheeks and drip into his ruff. 

_Sam, Sam, please, Sam, I’m so sorry, please. **Please!**_

His hands come up to cover his mouth, eyes wide as his best friend’s mortified face swims at the forefront of his mind. With it comes pain he cannot even begin to fathom. Like a knife piercing his back right to his heart, it blooms in his chest, burning, closing his throat, and a wild sob claws at his lips, demanding to be free. His shoulders shake silently as he stares at the wall of paint, trying to soldier on and do his work.

But the sheer weight of it…

He remembers burning, burning so bright with rage it consumed him. And then he’d taken his friend with him, his words cutting, hitting him where he knew it would hurt the most. Like a crime of passion, it took an instance to know just what would inflict the same pain he felt, if not more. 

For a second, he’d relished it with vile bitterness and resentment. The words that fell from his lips came with insidious, malicious satisfaction.

_Not even your own **Mother.**_

And then Sam’s face had fallen, and the cold regret and dread had washed over Guy so quickly it had chilled him to his core. His rage abandoned him, and in its place shock and horror closed around his heart.

His words had done just what he wanted them to. Guy had wanted to hurt him. More than physical blows ever could.

Guy’s never felt so loathsome in his life. 

_I hate you… I hate you, I hate you **I hate you I hate you I hate you I HATE YOU.**_

The weight of his sorrow, his self loathing, is a physical thing. Guy curls in on himself, fighting for breath through his tears, drowning in them, crushed by the weight of his self-directed hatred. It’s impossibly huge, too gargantuan to comprehend, and his mind and heart falter in the face of it. He is insignificant, powerless, small in the looming shadow of it, reeling as it presses down on him and steals the breath from his lungs.

He’s a failure. He destroys everything he touches. He is a ticking time bomb, set to explode in the face of anyone who gives him the time of day. He doesn’t deserve love, he doesn’t deserve compassion, he didn’t deserve happiness.

And he was stupid, so yipping stupid, for ever thinking someone could really think so highly of him. For getting his hopes up, for opening up and allowing someone in. Sam has become a literal presence in his heart, and with him gone the space he left behind is like an open, gaping wound, salted by Guy’s tears. It’s a black hole that threatens to consume him, and his thoughts dissolve into hysterical screams of pain and anguish that echo through the corridors of his mind.

_I don’t blame you for thinking it’s easier to be alone. I used to think that way, too.  
It seemed like the only way to not get hurt or hurt others was to be on my own._

“Sam…” The word is strangled, thick with his tears, and it brings on a whole new set of sobs. He cries silently, his whole body racked with them, shaking his frame like hammer blows. His fit takes a toll on his form, and soon all of him hurts, muscles protesting the spasms of his weeping. 

_Please come back, I can’t do it, I can’t do it Sam, I can’t. I can’t do it alone, not again, please please please please please oh god please I don’t want to be alone._

But this was for the best, right? He couldn’t hurt anyone if they stayed away from him, and he hurt less on his own, hurt less than it did now, right? But being alone, after feeling the warmth of another, was more pain than he could bear.

Like the wall before him, every happy memory of his travel buddy is swathed in blue. When Sam caught him as they made their daring prison escape. When he covered for him with Michellee in the cabin and encouraged him to pursue her. Their late night talk in the tent, the breakfast with his family, the relationships he repaired. 

His blind adoration, his generous compliments, his glowing smile that hurt to look at. That smile hurts even more to think about in the wake of Sam flinching in hurt and betrayal, in the face of the tears that had welled in his eyes and disappeared into the pearly white fur of his cheeks.

Sam is… was his best friend, the only friend he’d ever had. And probably Guy’s last. He’d never been all that charismatic, even as a child prodigy and the academic achiever. Anyone who’d gotten close to him had been pulled into the toxicity of his own self-hatred and bitterness, and they’d fled before he’d ever get the chance to really be seen, to really be loved.

But Sam had stayed. Sam had seen him for who he was, and chose to stay. He’d looked past his angry, cankerous walls and chiseled away at them to find the fragile, hurting man beneath. No matter what Sam’s intentions had been from the start, he’d really wanted to be his friend, really wanted to see the good in Guy.

And he’d hurt him for it. He probably regretted it now. Some people just weren’t worth it.

“Oi, I don’t see your eyes on that paint, Am I!” A voice from behind him barks suddenly, and Guy sucks in a shaky, rasping breath, like a drowning man coming up for air as his lungs filled with frigid sea water. He coughs into his hand, and his other hand desperately paws at his eyes, trying to make the tears go away, to hide the red puffiness there. 

Of course, only the biggest failure could fail at failing, at giving up on his dreams. What good was he if he couldn’t even watch paint.

He doesn’t think he can speak, doesn’t trust his voice not to be thick and shaky. He doesn’t trust himself to do anything. No matter how desperately he paws at his eyes, the tears don’t stop. He didn’t think anyone could have so many tears to give. And his head pounds with such force he thinks it will kill him, his thoughts a mess of pleading, of Sam’s face, of every malicious insult he could level at himself.

_Just die, Guy. No one will miss you, why should they? What good have you done for anyone?_

Sam was a criminal. But Guy was a monster. Garbage. A waste. A disappointment.

The knox hears a grunt of disapproval behind him, and then the unmistakable sound of heavy footfalls. Oh no. He couldn’t be seen like this. He couldn’t do anything like this. Fear grips him, and he swallows again before gasping out, his voice frantic and broken even to his own ears.

“I… sorry I… there was just… something in my eye. I’m… I’m fine.”

The footsteps stop in their tracks, and Guy chews on his bottom lip hard, hoping, praying, that this would be the last of it. He gives his eyes one last, final swipe before zeroing in on the wall, not even daring to blink. His vision is still blurry, but he can see through the haze that the paint is still wet. 

His whole face hurts, especially his eyes, and his head throbs in earnest, made worse by trying to see through his tears. He needs to sit with his eyes closed; little hope of that while watching paint.

After an unsettlingly long pause, he hears another grunt, a dismissal, “Eye irritation comes with the territory kid, get used to it if you want to be in this line of work.”

A hysterical, miserable chuckle claws up Guy’s throat so quickly he’s forced to bite his lip hard enough to bruise it, and he remains mercifully quiet as he’s finally left alone. Letting out a shaky breath he runs his hands over his face, rubbing the wet fur beneath his eyes, then his temples as he slowly but surely forces himself to calm down. His heart still aches with a vengeance, but he lets it wash over him, letting it send him cold, succumbing to resignation and emptiness, till there’s nothing left, not even a stray thought to send him back into the spiral.

It was unhealthy, pushing it all down, but what was a Guy to do. Not much else to do but sit and stare. Maybe he’d forget what it was like to feel at all. In the aftermath of his breakdown, that sounds like pure bliss. 

_Maybe…_

But then the whole wall shakes, a thunderous thump making him jolt in his seat. He almost thinks he imagined it, until it happens again, and again.

And there’s a familiar voice. Muffled, but unmistakable. 

In an instant, disbelief turns to hope, and it throws off the smothering numbness that had gripped him mere moments ago. He pushes himself to his feet to throw himself against the wall, pressing his ear to the damp paint to listen.

EB! Mr Jenkins! Michellee! His friends, they’re right there.

And maybe, just maybe-

_Sam…_

Guy takes off at a run, almost falling over himself in his hurry. He runs faster than he ever has, faster than he ever fled from goats and bad guys, cops and giroosters, as hope fills the abyss in his heart and spurs him forward.

That hope makes his heart swell to ten times its size, his chest and throat filling with it. And he lets it, welcoming it, throwing off the shackles of his misery and resentment. He had friends to find, to save, to atone to.

_Please don’t go. Please wait, I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming. I can’t do it alone. I won’t do it alone. I can love when I’m with you. I love myself when I’m with you. I need you, I need you, I need you._

_You’ll never be alone again._

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Sam bounces around their hotel room with an impossible amount of energy, after all they’ve been through in a single day, Guy simply can’t stop staring at him, flopped on his bed. He’d collapsed there in a floppy heap the moment they’d arrived, and he hasn’t moved an inch since, his whole body aching with fatigue and the abuse he’d put himself through.

He’s convinced himself that if he looks away, Sam will disappear. And he’ll be all alone again. The thought is too painful to bear, and as hard as he tries to push it aside, it still lingers at the shadowy edges of his mind, threatening to break him down again.

He never wants to be alone again. Ever.

“Do you think Mr Jenkins is enjoying his in flight movie? It’s my favorite! Have you seen it? Two Best Buds Who Can Never Be Broken Up, it’s a classic!”

Guy jolts back to reality, blinking hard as Sam suddenly launches himself onto the other bed, landing on his side in a perfectly laid back pose, one leg propped up. He flashes Guy a positively glowing grin, and he can’t help but offer him a small smile in return, rubbing at his neck. The title of the movie feels like a punch to his gut, but he’ll be damned if he’ll let it show.

“Oh, Mr Jenkins will love anything with moving pictures. He’s an animal. But I’ve er… not seen that one. I’m sure he’ll especially like it, though.”

Sam gives another of his painfully long, exaggerated gasps, but for once Guy doesn’t have it in him to be annoyed, “ _You haven’t seen it_?! Oh Guy, we’ve _gotta_ watch that, I wonder if they’ve got some movies here! Any hotel worth their salt has to have it."

The Who-like creature leaps from the bed, bounding over to the TV. It’s perched on a cupboard, and Sam throws the doors open so rifle through its contents with vigor, throwing things this way and that across the room, his words coming out in a rapid, excited tumble as he does so.

“It’s only the best movie ever made, ya know. The two best buds, they’re thick as thieves. And nothing can tear them apart, it’s inspirational stuff. Now I don’t want to spoil anything for ya, hotel bud, but it looks like it gets _really dicey_ at one point, like really dicey. I mean, I was convinced that it was the end for them, but then _plot twist_. Edge of your seat kind of stuff, ya know?”

Sam looks over his shoulder expectantly, just in time to see the tears brimming in Guys eyes, his chin raised, his whole face scrunched up with the effort of holding them back. Sam’s face falls, and he slowly turns around fully, his shoulders slumping.

“ _Guy?_ What… what’s wrong, bud?”

The question is too much for the knox, and his breath comes out in a shaky woosh. He only realizes now he’s been holding his breath, not trusting himself not to sob.

Why is this happening. He should be happy, and he is. Sam is here. He isn’t running away, or disappearing through a panel in the ceiling. He isn’t getting on a cold air balloon. He’s right there, looking up at him all big shining eyes, with those dense lashes and soft, snowy tufts of fur.

It hurts so much to look at him.

“I’m sorry, I… it’s been a long day,” he finally manages, his voice small, and he clears his throat as those tears spill over, “I’ll stop, just don’t… don’t mind me.”

For yips sake, hasn’t he done enough crying for one day. He hates himself for how fast the tears come, and how thick his voice is. And even with Sam there, that void is still there, still aching beneath the fur of his chest.

_Stupid me, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Stop crying. Stop crying right this instant, Guy Am I. You’re a yipping fool._

But Sam does mind him. The smaller man takes a few tentative steps towards him, reaching out. He hesitates for only a second before he climbs up onto Guy’s bed, shuffling tentatively closer to him. Guy doesn’t retreat, his hands pawing at his eyes as he tries to feign nonchalance, like he’s merely trying to get a hair out of his eyes rather than trying to see through his tears.

“Oh, bud… hey… don’t be sorry…” Sam’s voice coos so softly Guy almost doesn’t hear it over his own shaking breaths, “I’m… I’m here, okay? Is it Mr Jenkins? I miss him too. But he’s in a better place now, he’s home. He’s with family. That’s good, right?”

Sam’s hand reaches out to brush Guy’s knee, and when he doesn’t recoil his hand trails upward in a gentle brush to his elbow, before moving up to his shoulder. He grips him firmly, but it’s tender, reassuring. An anchor in a tumultuous sea.

The touch is too much, and it’s as if the dam breaks, the emotion surging through Guy and crushing him all over again.

“No!” Guy barks, and he covers his face with his hands, his shoulders curling forward. He doesn’t shoo Sam away, and to his relief, he doesn’t go anywhere, “No, no, no. It’s not Jenkins. For yips sake, I… I… Sam…”

He can’t get the words out, and he bites down hard on his bottom lip, his hands moving to grab his ears and pull on them roughly, tugging them down as he screws his eyes tightly shut. The more he looks at Sam, the more he hears him, the more he _feels_ him, the worse it gets.

The room is silent beside for Guy’s shaky breaths, until there’s a murmur, small, fragile and sad “Is… is it me? I… can go-”

“ **No!** ” Guy gasps, and his eyes flash open in an instant. Reflexively his hands shoot out to grab Sam by the shoulders, his hands huge on his small friend petite frame. Sam’s doe eyes are big and wet, getting steadily wetter with every passing second, “No, no, no! How… that doesn’t even make sense!”

“But I… you were… I hurt you…” Sam whines, and Guy groans in response, gritting his teeth against the pain of seeing his friend hurting at his expense.

Before he quite knows what he’s doing he’s pulling Sam in closer, practically dragging the small man. He’s so light that Guy does it easily, and the Who doesn’t resist. Sam’s hands come up to grip his forearms, and he looks up at Guy with eyes the size of dinner plates.

“Guy…?” Sam trails off, tiny and incredibly fragile, as if afraid of what he’ll hear.

The words struggle to set themselves free from the confines of Guy’s throat, and he ducks his head, unable to look at Sam. A few stray tears fall onto his lap, pattering onto the burnt orange fur of his thighs, and after another quiet, shuddering breath, he tries again, with feeling. 

“Sam I am… you’re the _only_ person to give me a try… even when I was at my very worst. No matter how hard I pushed you away. And I hurt you.” 

Sam sucks in a breath to make a sharp response, but Guy cuts him off quickly, looking up to meet his gaze, “I know you forgive me. But I’ll never stop being sorry. I was… I was scared, Sam. Scared I’d lost the only friend I ever had. I was horrible, I was stupid, and I… it still… _hurts_.”

He lapses into fragile silence, his chest rising and falling in shaky, heavy breaths, his throat closed with emotion. He watches as Sam stares up at him in awe, lost for words.

And then the Who closes the space between them. Sam wraps his arms around him, his slender yellow fingers trailing through sunset fur as he gingerly moves in for an embrace.

Guy doesn’t pull away. In fact, his arms close around Sam’s small body in an instant, pulling him flush against him to hug him fiercely. He presses him to his chest like he could stuff him back into the hole he’d left there, to fill that void and patch it up with his infectious joy and optimism.

It hurts to touch him, no matter how many times he’d been forcefully hugged by him before. Once upon a time he’d have hated it, but now he can’t think of any other place he’d rather be, can’t get enough of their entanglement.

And then they’re crying.

The two hug each other in vice-like grips, afraid to let go of the other, reluctant to let up any of the pressure they exert on one another. Like they could climb inside each other if they just keep holding on. But the press of their bodies is like the patient, careful grip of hands around a broken vase, holding the glued pieces together as it sets.

And in each others arms, to the chorus of their quiet sobs and sniffles, they glue themselves back together. Piece by piece.

Guy slips down onto the sheets, still cradling his small friend to his chest as Sam’s whole body shakes with his weeps and whines, face in Guy’s now thoroughly abused ruff. Their hats fall to the wayside, but neither notices, too caught up in squeezing the pain away. Their words are muffled jumbles in each other’s fur, voices wet and tight in their throats.

“It hurt so much, Guy, it really did.”

“I know Sam, I’m so sorry...”

“Don’t say sorry again… I’m so sorry I lied to you. I never… I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I shouldn’t have doubted you, it won’t happen again, not in a hurry, okay?”

“I thought I’d never see you again… you’re my best friend… my only friend. I couldn’t… I couldn’t lose you too.”

Guy can’t possibly squeeze him any tighter, and his head falls back on the pillows as he looks up at the ceiling, swallowing thickly, “I’m not going anywhere Sam. You know… not until you inevitably get sick of me.”

Sam sniffles and snorts loudly into his ruff, but Guy can’t find it in him to be grossed out, “Don’t… don’t you say that about my best friend… he’s great, you know. The best Guy I know.”

The inventor actually gives a quiet laugh at that, caught off guard, and the sound slowly comes easier, until the laughter has him free an arm to press his forearm over his eyes, his shoulders shaking with small bursts of laughter and hiccuping breaths.

Sam looks up, watching him laugh through his tears, and a silly smile graces his lips, “Oh, ya think that’s funny do ya? Cheeky, laughing in the face of danger! Well… well I’ll have ya know, he has only one weakness!”

“Really now?” Guy retorts gruffly, and he shifts his arm till he can peer at him with one red rimmed eye, his smile lopsided, “And what might that be?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, scoundrel? But really… he’s a huge softy.” Sam grins at him impishly, sitting up on his chest, and before Guy can do anything more the Who’s hands are tickling his sides and under his arms, fingers dancing against his fur. “And super ticklish!”

That does it. The knox howls with laughter, arching against the sheets. He squirms and flails, trying fruitlessly to push Sam’s away from his body. His travel buddy giggles wickedly between his sniffles, wiggling away from Guy’s hands as he continues to launch his assault. He doesn’t stop till they’re both gasping for breath, coughing a little from the tears that had blocked their airwaves moments ago. 

Wiping any remaining wetness away from his eyes Sam sits up once more, peering down at his travel buddy with a smile that’s smaller than his trademark smirks and grins. But despite that, it still glows with so much warmth that Guy feels his heart swell in his chest. The pain has ebbed, and in its place is only fondness, hope, and determination.

“Sam I am?”

“Yeeees, my Guy?” is his singsong reply, with a little less cheek than usual, but it’s still there.

Guy pushes himself up onto his elbows, and for a moment Sam almost falls backwards. But he steadies himself, arching his brows at the other man. Guy levels a meaningful look at him, holding his gaze.

“Sam, you’re my best friend. And as your best friend, I’ll follow here. I’ll follow you there. I’ll follow you, anywhere and everywhere.”

The former convict gapes at him, and he splutters quietly, for once lost for words. Finally he gets it out, hands coming up to curl at his chest, “You really mean that?”

“I’d bet my hat on it.” Guy retorts gently, offering him a small grin. And Sam’s face lights up like a Christmas tree.

“Literally _anywhere_?”

“Anywhere and everywhere.”

“Even to the top of Mount Neverist?”

“You’d have to give me time to pack enough warm clothes, but yes. That’s the definition of anywhere and everywhere, Sam I Am.” he retorts dryly, giving him a small but playful eye roll.

Sam simply beams at him, like the sun is glowing out of his face, and the warmth of it seeps through Guy’s tired body, making him relax beneath him.

“That’s a lot of places to see, travel bud… but… before that.”

His small yellow friend dismounts him to clamber to the floor, and Guy arches a brow as he watches him go. Sam bounds to the TV, and after a moment he whirls around, waving a tape.

“Would you see ‘Two Best Buds Who Can Never Be Broken Up’ with me?” he asks hopefully, shifting from one foot to the other with excitement and anticipation.

Guy is exhausted. Every part of him hurts. He wants to curl up and sleep for a decade.

He doesn’t even have to think about it.

“Sure, why not. I haven’t watched a movie in a hotel room before.”

Sam squeals in delight, and Guy has to resist another chuckle as he sinks back onto his pillows, “Oh, _trust me_ , they’re _especially_ good in a hotel room, hotel buddy.” 

With some tinkering and a few happy giggles, like a child waiting anxiously for his presents on Christmas day, Sam gets the movie going. He charges around the room, switching the lights off, before he bodily launches himself onto the bed beside Guy.

“In fact, they’re the best _riiiiiiiiight_ here! With my favorite bud. What do you say? I’m warning you though, I’m a bit of a snuzzler, and I’ll talk you through the whoooooole thing, you’ll probably thank me though-”

“Ssssh, Sam. Come here.” Guy murmurs gently, and he shifts to make space beside him, placing a spare pillow there for comfort. Sam is all too happy to oblige, squealing in excitement as he dives in to snuzzle and snuggle into his pillow, occasionally brushing up against Guy with bold cuddles. There’s no protests from Guy, and soon the two of them are watching the movie in relative silence, Sam occasionally bursting with enthusiasm over his favorite scenes or to add some insightful commentary. Guy doesn’t complain about that either.

But before the movie even gets half way, Guys eyes start to flutter closed, his breathing evening out, soft and steady. He rolls onto his side to face Sam, his arms curled loosely towards his chest. His breath tickles the back of the Who’s head, and Sam blinks hard, looking over his shoulder.

A short, quiet huff of a laugh escapes him, and with a warm, brimming smile Sam rolls over to face his Guy, taking note of how his face relaxes adorably in his sleep, how his eyes occasionally shift behind closed lids, betraying the presence of dreams. He was sure Guy had big ones.

“Sleep well, bud…” Sam whispers, his own eyes slowly growing heavy, “Let’s dream about all the places we’ll go…”

With the pale light of the TV flickering over them, casting the pair in a cool, glowing swathe of blue, they drift off to sleep, the most peaceful sleep they’ve had in days. And in the depth of their slumber, their fingers brush in the space between them, until their hands lace together loosely, reluctant to let go.


End file.
